2023 - December

Whoa.

Just about a year and a quarter since the babies came. 4 Children grace my wife and my life and inhabit our time and space. I suppose since I'm writing here there's some kind of fog I'm coming out of, but it isn't all to do with the wee babies (now pretty much walking) that came into the world last year.

There's family. There's work. There's the state of the world. There's a lot of reasons to be thankful, concerned, and joyful each in turn.

I'm thankful for my new place of work. The last, unfortunately, had become something unfamiliar to my experience from the previous 9 years and I wore it like a shirt that had shrunk in the wash. Still hoping I could stretch it out and make it my own again, that it might again fit like once it did. Alas, it would not give enough, and an opportunity came along to which I couldn't say no.

I'm thankful for my old place of work. 10 years of my life spent there. It kind of 'concludes' half of my adult working years really. 10 years at my first company, rotating through roles, experiencing different departments and growing. 10 years at my last company in yet another new role, software developer. Growing through junior, intermediate, senior, manager, experiencing aspects of the industry like scrum leadership, product management, client interaction, mentorship.

I will always miss all the people, and that special time for several years where there was a kind of magic going on, at least for me, but I think for many others as well.

It reminded me these past few months since I left that I'm no good at keeping in touch. December has had me beginning to reach out to people with whom I imagine an uncomfortable amount of time has gone by but whom for me it feels as though we only just shared pints in pubs the other week. I know I don't have a normal time sense, so I'm trying to push against that lever a little bit to change it's setting.

It's just a damned shame that we can't at times push the 'keep things as it is' button for just a little while. To lock in a pattern for a month, a year, a few years.

I know it's a wheel. I know it's a seasonal change. I know the young trees grow, and old trees need to nurture the young, at first from their mycelium pathways, and eventually from their own bodies bent low to the forest floor brought down sometimes too early by storms, or fire, and at times just by time itself.

So, I'm thankful, all in all, for the experience of having shared some time with some fantastic people and also that at the end of the day we, many of us, all still inhabit the same industry in some capacity or another. Our games of telephone span greater distances than they did when we sat starting at each other from across the desk banks of our (at first intimidatingly) open concept office space.

The twins are showing their personalities. One is constantly draping fabric over their shoulders, and the other is giggly and silly. It's strange and not strange, raising two at the same time and same age-slice.

To see the family grow together, argue, play, laugh, explore, build. They're all memories I have and will treasure.

The other big theme of December, related to the above maybe, is just a big whack of nostalgia. I've been nosing around BBS', looking for lower tech interactions with the 'slow' internet. When the world didn't end if it took a few days to get back to someone on a forum. It's old-man self taking the wheel here, but there's a kind of meditation to it for me. A serenity I'm enjoying. The faster pace can be for my day job, I'm enjoying the nooks and crannies of nostalgia on the off hours.

Realistically I know this may be my last post of this year, because really it's been rather splotchy the last while.

So, I hope the year winds down alright for everyone out there that may read these words.

All the best.

Peace,

Shane